


Laughter

by HorseCrazyWriter76



Series: NaNoWriMo November 2019 [23]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, LAMP that could be considered platonic and romantic, not beta read or edited, snapshots of growing up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:34:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21599254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HorseCrazyWriter76/pseuds/HorseCrazyWriter76
Summary: If it looks like I'm laughing I'm really just asking to leave.Prompt from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73Y_x30uKQg&list=OLAK5uy_kf2mr4s7G3ErS-ruCXgDFFwY8HyHQijfA&index=4
Series: NaNoWriMo November 2019 [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1541089
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	Laughter

Virgil hated parties. There were so many people you didn’t know and were expected to interact with. The music was too loud and somehow people always chose the worst songs, and asking for them to tone it down or change the song would be rude. Virgil hated parties, so why was he here, wedged into a corner and awkwardly bobbing along to a female and male singer pining after each other on the speakers?

Well, the long and short of it was Dee. He had convinced Virgil it would be fun, then seen one of his other friends and abandoned Virgil. This particular host didn’t even have a cat. Petting a cat at a party, while not completely socially acceptable, was a whole lot less awkward than bobbing along to bad love songs on the radio.

Correction, it was a whole lot less awkward than bobbing along to bad love songs on the radio  _ alone.  _

_ Thankfully a dashing prince seems to be on the way to fix the problem of awkwardly bobbing along to bad love songs on the radio alone!  _ Virgil thought sarcastically as someone about his age, maybe a year or two older than him, danced himself next to Virgil.

“Hello, Virgil, right? Dee’s friend? How are you liking the party?”

“Uh, yeah,” Virgil said, then immediately mentally face palmed. What kind of a response to ‘How are you liking the party?’ was that?

“Hm, so on a scale of no to yes, you’re about a yeah?” the man effortlessly recovered Virgil’s horrid response.

“Yeah,” Virgil said, trying vainly for a smile to make it less awkward. He was about 99.9% sure it only made him look more awkward.

“Well, Sir Yeah, do you have any song suggestions?”

“Are you sure you want to let the emo kid dj?” Virgil smirked, finally snapping out of it.

“Yes.”

“I’m Not Okay(I Promise) by My Chemical Romance.”

“One emo song coming right up,” the man replied, dancing away from him. The song ended and was replaced by the familiar opening to the song. Virgil sang along under his breath, a smile breaking out on his face, although it was short lived, as after I’m Not Okay(I Promise) ended the music went back to cheesy love songs.

“I doubt you’re having fun,” a familiar voice said. Virgil looked around, and his eyes quickly found Dee.

“You’re right: I’m having no fun whatsoever. No fun allowed,” Virgil replied in a deadpan.

“I didn’t see a smile when I’m Not Okay came on?”

“Nope, no smiles, only frowns.”

“Are you sure?”

Virgil nodded. They locked teasing gazes, then Virgil broke, letting a smile come onto his face.

“That doesn’t look like a smile.”

“You’re right, it’s a frown,” Virgil replied, making an over-exaggerated frown, then releasing it as they both laughed.

“I didn’t tell you it would be fun.”

“Ugh, the only fun part was I’m Not Okay(I Promise).”

“You don’t think having a conversation with me is fun?” Dee asked with a wide look of surprise, “I’m wounded, simply wounded!”

“Fine, talking with you is fun, too, I guess,” Virgil grumbled. 

“I’m simply not sure if I can belive that,” Dee huffed.

“Fine, talking with you is fun, too, I guess,” Virgil replied with a wide grin, prompting them both to burst into laughter again.

“Do you want a drink?”

“No.”

“I won’t be seeing you again.”

“I guess I’ll just go back to awkwardly bobbing along to famous people’s love lives.”

Dee snorted and walked away, leaving Virgil to do just that. 

*****

Virgil had no idea why he was here. That wasn’t true. They had all been invited over to Roman’s house to work on a group project, wherein Patton and Roman had quickly decided playing video games was a better use of their time than working. Logan and Virgil had started researching, and now they were going through and fact checking each other’s works. It hadn’t taken long for Virgil to get through Logan’s work. Essentially all he did was open up the website Logan had put next to the fact, made sure the source was credible, and moved on. He could see Logan adding websites to the facts Virgil had found and occasionally deleting or adjusting them. 

Looking at that just made him anxious, so he was watching Roman and Patton playing a game he didn’t recognize, or more accurately, Roman was playing a game he didn’t recognize, and Patton was cheering him on. They had decided over the group chat that this was a research day, so officially his part was over.

“How’s the research going?”

Logan didn’t look up from his computer.

“Pretty good,” Virgil said, “Logan’s just making sure everything’s right.”

“Want a turn with the controller?”

Virgil gave a nervous laugh. He didn’t really want to. What he wanted was to get home where he could shut out the world with loud music. Of course, what came out was, “Sure, what are you playing?”

Virgil only caught the tail end of Roman’s response past his own thoughts and the blood rushing in his ears, “...and you have to get to that platform!”

“That one?” Virgil asked, touching the joystick that usually, and thankfully did in this case, turned the camera to look at a platform.

“Yup!”

Virgil touched all the buttons just to see what they did, then moved the character out of the green box it was in. Immediately zombies came at him, and Virgil spammed the hit button, barely looking at what was actually going on. When he took a proper look again the last zombie died. He took two more swings at the empty space for good measure. He stopped, and Roman and Patton immediately began cheering for him. 

“Oo, press the blue button!” Roman urged. Virgil looked at the screen, then pressed the blue button. A weird sound effect played and a prompt to put the blocks in the proper order based on a set of clues came up. Virgil studied it for a moment, then quickly put all of the blocks in the correct order, to the reward of trumpet fanfare and a key from the game and more cheering from the boys behind him. He forced another small chuckle and hurried to complete the rest of the level, then gladly handed the controller off to Patton, and took his leave when Logan finished packing up his notebooks and computer.

*****

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay another night? We don’t mind at all,” his mom assured him, looking out the window at the pouring rain.

“Yeah, but I need to get home. I’ll be fine,” Virgil replied with a tiny laugh. He loved his family, but spending a week with them was too much, and he was looking forward to shutting himself in his room for a day. Of course, he also knew he couldn’t drive far in the rain, but his parents didn’t need to know that.

“Well, if you’re sure.”

“I’m sure, I’ll be fine. Thanks for everything,” Virgil said.

“It was no problem, come visit again soon, okay? We love you.”

“Yeah, love you, too,” Virgil replied, then slid into the drivers seat and took out his phone. He pulled up Logan’s contact. He had moved into an apartment in this town to attend the local college. 

_ V: Can I crash on your couch tonight _

_ L: You can stay the night. Is everything alright? _

_ V: Yeah be right there gotta drive _

_ L: Please drive safely. _

_ V: *thumbs up* _

He plugged Logan’s address into his phone and backed out in to the rain, immediately starting the wind sheild wipers. He crawled through the city, going no faster than 20 miles per hour. He breathed a sigh of relief when the gps instructed him to turn into the parking lot. He chose the closest spot to the building and turned off the car. He sat there without moving for a minute, then grabbed his umbrella, shoved his phone as deep as he could into his pocket, and walked out into the rain.

The umbrella wasn’t much help with all the wind, so he ended up drenched on the covered walkway between the apartments. He shook the water out of his umbrella and knocked on the door, which was promptly answered by Logan. 

“I apologize for the mess. I just started working on a research project,” Logan said. The mess consisted of his open laptop, a spread of books, notebooks, and loose paper, and an empty bowl that had probably held some sort of healthy snack. The rest of the room was all neatly packed away into its different areas. Even the science and math posters had been arranged in a grid on the wall.

“This would probably constitute clean in most people’s places. It’s no problem.”

“Well, this is not ‘clean’ by my standards. In any case, would you like to talk about why you came to visit while it is figuratively raining cats and dogs?”

“Oh, I was just visiting my parents and they got overbearing. One week is kind of my limit with any sort of family gathering,” Virgil shrugged.

“Would I be correct in the assumption that you would prefer solitary activities to group activities at this time?”

“Yup.”

“You are welcome to go in to my room, the kitchen, or sit on the couch. I’m going to continue working on my project.”

Virgil nodded and walked the sort distance to the kitchen, entertaining himself on his phone.

*****

“Virgil, you know how you said you wanted to have a white christmas?” Roman started. All four of them were draped over various pieces of furniture. Well, correction, Logan sat on the couch, Patton was laying down with his head in Logan’s lap, Roman had twisted his body in to some approximation of what could be considered sitting and that he insisted was quite comfortable, and Virgil was laying across the top of the couch running his fingers through Roman’s hair. He had always had the softest hair out of all of them.

“Yes?”

“Well, I believe Fall Out Boy is touring in Nevada.”

Virgil’s hands stopped, “Don’t just be messing with me. I swear to whatever deity or deities are out there that if you’re messing with me I will rip up your Disney poster collection.”

“...Anyways, Logan, I believe there’s a open group for people interested in climate change.”

Virgil was nearly knocked from his perch by the extent of Logan’s surprised reaction.

“And Patton I believe you said you wanted to learn to ice skate.”

Patton let out a high pitched squeal, as Roman slowly drew tickets out of his pocket. Two tickets to a Fall Out Boy concert were pressed into Virgil’s hand, and a handwritten note in swirly letters basically saying they were all going to Nevada was pressed into each of their hands.

“Dude. How friggin expensive was all of this?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Roman replied, waving his hand, “I take it we’re going?”

“Yes!” Three voices choroused at once.

*****

Of course, the idea of going to Nevada was a lot more fun than actually going. Currently they were all sitting on the airplane ready to take off, although an announcement made 5 minutes ago had alerted them that they weren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Logan and Patton had fallen asleep practically as soon as they sat down, Virgil couldn’t blame them, it was 6AM, after all. Virgil would be sleeping if he could, but anxiety about the flight knocked that possibility from the list.

“Want to make bets as to how long it takes them to fix whatever issue is keeping us from taking off?” Virgil asked. 

“What are we betting on?”

“I dunno, chocolate?” Virgil offered, digging a bar of milk chocolate from his bag. Roman dug a slightly squished set of peanut butter cups from his bag.

“At least 10 minutes,” Virgil ventured.

“I give it 20.”

“Alright, 15.”

Roman hit a button on his watch and held it out so Virgil could see the seconds being counted.

“So, what lies for you in this apparent destiny state of Nevada? Now I sound like you,” Virgil asked, scrunching up his nose at the second part. 

Roman let out a little laugh, “Getting to see all of you happy! Also, I made a bet with Remus that I could learn to ice skate.”

“Oh boy, what was it over?”

“Stickers.”

“Why would you bet your life on being able to ice skate?”

Roman laughed again, “Stickers are more important than life! And Remus had this cute set of chibi disney princesses with redesigned dresses.”

“Already using the past tense?”

“I’m determined. I’ve already been teaching myself to rollerblade.”

“That’s why you’ve been coming home late and bruised.”

“Alas, you have discovered my secret.”

“Attention all passengers, we have been cleared for take off. Staff will be making the final pre-flight check. Please make sure all tray tables are closed and all carry-on luggage is in the overhead compartments or stowed under the seat in front of you. We apologize for the delay and thank you for flying with us.”

“Time?”

“10 minutes.”

Virgil made a show of grabbing the peanut butter cups and putting them in his bag.


End file.
